Nailing clip for plastic siding

ABSTRACT

Siding for house exteriors is now commonly made to simulate clapboards and has an integral top locking strip having a downward projection spaced from the body of the siding into which an upturned projecting strip, on the bottom of the next higher course of siding can be fitted when applying the siding to a house. The present disclosure eliminates this integral locking strip and provides instead small nailing clips of a special construction which are less expensive and which are constructed so that the siding can be nailed in place loosely, which is desirable to permit thermal expansion and contraction of the siding.

United States Patent [191 Kessler July 23, 1974 NAILING CLIP FOR PLASTIC SIDING [76] lnventor: Gerald Kessler, 388 Cransberry Rd.,

Boardman, Ohio 44512 [22] Filed: Aug. 18, 1972 [21] Appl. No.: 281,949

[52] U.S. Cl 52/548, 52/521, 85/11,

[51] Int. Cl E04d 1/34 [58] Field of Search 52/544-548,

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,325,124 7/1943 Gardner 52/521 2,353,455 7/1944 Gisondi 52/548 2,756,699 7/1956 Lookwood.... 52/548 2,845,881 8/1958 Ogden 52/548 3,214,876 11/1965 Mattes 52/546 X 3,703,062 11/1972 McKinney .52/545 Primary Examiner-Henry C. Sutherland Assistant Examiner-Carl D. Friedman [57] ABSTRACT Siding for house exteriors is now commonly made to simulate clapboards and has an integral top locking strip having a downward projection spaced from the body of the siding into which an upturned projecting strip, on the bottom of the next higher course of siding can be fitted when applying the siding to a house. The present disclosure eliminates this integral locking strip and provides instead small nailing clips of a special construction which are less expensive and which are constructed so that the siding can be nailed in place loosely, which is desirable to permit thermal expansion and contraction of the siding.

4 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures This invention is an improvement on my prior invention entitled Nailing Clip for Plastic Siding as described in patent application Ser. No. 177,989 filed Sept. 7, 1971, now US. Pat. No. 3,738,076. The prior application describes a plastic nailing clip having the same function as the clip of the present invention, but which is assembled in two pieces, one being a plastic clip and the other being a nail which is driven into the wall of a building during assembly of the siding. The present invention comprises a unitary metal clip which combines all of the elements of the two-piece clip described in the above application, and which can be made very inexpensively, while being stronger and steadier than the clip of my prior invention.

A popular substitute for wooden clapboard siding is made to resemble clapboarding, and consists of a number of elongated pieces or courses which are applied in overlapping relationship, similar to clapboards, so as to shed water. Since this siding is made of thin material, either plastic or metal, means must be provided to interlock each course as it is applied with the next lower course. For this purpose, an integral'top locking strip is provided on each course which has a downward projection spaced from the body of the siding into which an upturned projecting strip on the bottom of the next higher course of siding can be fitted when applying siding to a house. This next course is then nailed to the house, usually to plywood sheathing which has been applied to form the exterior walls of the house, at a point above the top locking strip, so that the nailing is concealed by the next higher courseof siding. The nailing is usually done through a slot provided near the top edge of each course of siding, the purpose of the slot being to permit a, certain amount of lateral movement of the siding with respect to the wall of the house, to provide for differential expansion and contraction between the siding and the sheathing,.which otherwise would tend to produce buckling and distortion of the siding. For this reason, the nail should not be applied too tightly, and this is often difficult to achieve in practice, and may result in the undesired distortion taking place. The present invention substitutes for the integral locking strip a series of small nailing clips of special construction as described below, which are less expensive, and which are constructed to that the siding will be held in place loosely, thus permitting the desired thermal expansion and contraction.

The specific nature of the invention, as well as other objects and advantages thereof, will clearly appear from a description of a preferred embodiment as shown in the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIG. 1 is a sectional view taken transversely through a wall to which the siding is applied, showing the construction of two different forms of the invention illustrated as applied to two successive courses of siding;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of one form of nailing clip shown in FIG. 1; and

siding is provided at its top portion with an integral flat strip 6 which is in turn provided with nailing slots 8 by means of which each course of siding is ordinarily nailed to the wall, the nails preferably being driven not fully in so that the siding is free to move slightly in the direction of its length relative to the wall in accommodation to thermal or other expansion or contraction between the wall and the siding. The bottom part of each course of siding is formed by the intumed strip 10 terminating in a shorter upturned strip 12 which can be engaged with a downturned portion 56 of a nailing clip 51 to hold the bottom part of the siding firmly in place.

The present invention provides a unitary nailing clip 51, made by bending a suitable length of wire in a wireforming machine so as to produce a nail portion 52, a nail stop portion 53, a slot-engaging portion 54, which passes into slot 8, and a bottom clip strip 56 as above described for engaging the upturned bottom locking portions 58 of the next siding course 2. The clip portion 56 is, of course dimensioned so that it will receive the locking strip 58 after siding course 2a has been nailed in place. The nail stop portion 53 prevents the nail from being driven in too deeply, so that it must assume the relative position shown in FIG. 1 in which it cannot enter deeply enough into the side of the building to cause binding, but instead hold the course of siding 2a firmly against displacement, but yet capable of lateral expansion due to the horizontal extension of slot 8, which is of conventional construction as shown in 'FIG. 1 of my copending application above referred to.

The next lower course of siding 2b is shown held in place by a similar nailing clip, but one which is made in a different manner. In this case, the nailing clip, as best shown in FIG. 2, is an integral metal piece which may be made in a variety of known ways, e.g., by stamping out of sheet metal of the proper gauge, or else by slicing it from a metal extrusion having the silhouette shown at 61 in FIG. 1. Corresponding elements of clip 61 are numbered similarly to those of clip 51, except that the first digit is a 6 instead of a 5.

Either form of the invention described above can be very inexpensively made and provides a very strong and sturdy nailing clip which can be used with either plastic or metal siding.

I claim:

1. a. In combination with courses of siding made to resemble strips of clapboard and having top edges lying flat against a wall to which the siding is nailed, said top edges having a plurality of spaced horizontal nailing slots extending completely through the siding from front to back and said siding having also a bottom edge turned in toward the wall and terminating in a short upwardly-turned locking strip,

b. a unitary metal nailing clip having an integral elongated pointed nail portion penetrating the wall,

0. nail-like slot-engaging projection spaced from and shorter than said nail portion and parallel thereto and extending loosely through the slot in a course of siding into stopping engagement with the wall to which the siding is nailed, when the nail portion is fully driven into said wall,

d. and a locking strip engaging portion spaced from and extending below said slot-engaging portion and shaped to engage the upturned locking strip of the next higher course of siding.

2. The invention according to claim 1,

nailing clip being formed of a single length of bent wire. 4. The invention according to claim 1, said nailing clip being a unitary metal stamping. 

1. A. In combination with courses of siding made to resemble strips of clapboard and having top edges lying flat against a wall to which the siding is nailed, said top edges having a plurality of spaced horizontal nailing slots extending completely through the siding from front to back and said siding having also a bottom edge turned in toward the wall and terminating in a short upwardly-turned locking strip, b. a unitary metal nailing clip having an integral elongated pointed nail portion penetrating the wall, c. nail-like slot-engaging projection spaced from and shorter than said nail portion and parallel thereto and extending loosely through the slot in a course of siding into stopping engagement with the wall to which the siding is nailed, when the nail portion is fully driven into said wall, d. and a locking strip engaging portion spaced from and extending below said slot-engaging portion and shaped to engage the upturned locking strip of the next higher course of siding.
 2. The invention according to claim 1, e. and a nail stop portion adjacent to said nail portion for engaging said wall after the nail has penetrated it to a desired depth.
 3. The invention according to claim 1, said metal nailing clip being formed of a single length of bent wire.
 4. The invention according to claim 1, said nailing clip being a unitary metal stamping. 